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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23133925">course set for an uncharted sea.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/coronaofastar/pseuds/coronaofastar'>coronaofastar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>course set for an uncharted sea [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Last Hours Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Ambiguous/Open Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Mutual Pining, References to Chain of Gold, but like implied pining d'you know what I mean</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:46:40</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,145</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23133925</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/coronaofastar/pseuds/coronaofastar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"Please, don't move. I'm having a hard enough time keeping you from bleeding out as it is."<br/><br/>"Oh," Alastair managed. His head was spinning, and he felt very cold. His fingertips had simply faded from existence. "Is that what this is?"</p><hr/><p>Sometimes it takes grave injury...for things to continue not being said.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Alastair Carstairs/Thomas Lightwood, Past-Alastair Carstairs/Charles Fairchild, Pre-Alastair Carstairs/Thomas Lightwood</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>course set for an uncharted sea [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1927294</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>251</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>course set for an uncharted sea.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I read CHoG in my local grocery store in an hour flat so like characterization might be two inches to the left you know what I mean</p><p>The other day I wrote about 1k of nothing but Matthew suffering and today I wrote,, this, so just so y'all know, that's the content you're getting from me ig</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>  Charles was crying, or as much as Charles ever cried. He was blinking suspiciously, and as Alastair watched, detached, yet mesmerized by the odd gleam in his green eyes, one tear rolled down his cheek.</p><p>  He tried to take a breath and was met with pain. He tried to tell Charles to stop pressing hard on his chest. His mouth tasted like metal.</p><p>  <em> Don't cry, Charlie,</em> he thought faintly, as another tear followed the other. It was oddly fond. He wasn't in love with Charles anymore. But he didn't want him to cry.</p><p>  "Matthew!" Charles bellowed. There was something strangled in his voice. "Your stele, now!"</p><p>  Alastair found that he had enough breath in his lungs to wheeze a laugh; Matthew Fairchild, who hated him. What a day. The laugh hurt, but it felt worth it, and the movement drew Charles' attention back to him. "Don't move, sweetheart," he said, the last word pitched low. His eyes flicked to the side for a moment, involuntary, checking to see if anyone had heard. "Please, don't move. I'm having a hard enough time keeping you from bleeding out as it is."</p><p>  "Oh," Alastair managed. His head was spinning, and he felt very cold. His fingertips had simply faded from existence. "Is that what this is?"</p><p>  The tail end of his sentence never made it out of his mouth. Alastair tried to lift his head enough to see, caught a glimpse of red and failed, but Charles's expression went tense and tight anyway. "What did I say?" he demanded, though there was no real anger behind it. "Don't move."</p><p>  The person who came into view was not Charles's younger brother, but Thomas Lightwood, spattered with ichor and strangely white-faced, crouching down beside him with stele in hand. Alastair felt sour regret rise in his throat. Not Matthew, but another person who hated him all the same. "What do I do?"</p><p>  Charles's hands shifted a little to the side. The fabric beneath gear had a discomforting wetness, as though it were soaked through. "The Morax caught him in the chest. Cut the gear -"</p><p>  One firm line of pressure drew down his torso. Thomas's big hands parted his ruined gear, pulled open his shirt. Cold air hit his exposed chest.</p><p>  Alastair faded out somewhat as the stele burned, beginning the trace of an <em>iratze</em>. A warm hand, almost fire-warm, settled on the side of his ribs. He was too drained to do so much as twitch. </p><p>  Thomas's voice, sounding alarmed: "It isn't working."</p><p>  "Keep going," Charles said. His hands were still pressed hard against Alastair's chest. Alastair's skin itched with sharp, prickling pains, a weak attempt to stitch itself back together.</p><p>  The stele was still moving, drawing rune after rune, but Thomas sounded a little harder now. "There may be poison in the wound. He might die unless we get him to the Institute -"</p><p>  "He might die on the way there," snapped Charles, steel in his voice to match.</p><p>  "Then we will have to move," Thomas said, clipped, "<em>quickly.</em>" Then, in a voice of soft alarm, "Alastair?"</p><p>  "Mm."</p><p>  The stele stopped. The warm hand left his side; Alastair had a split second to vaguely mourn its loss before warm hands were touching his face, cupping his cheek. "Alastair? Alastair, wake up. Look at me."</p><p>  He hadn't realized his eyes were closed. He peeled his heavy eyelids open once, - everything was yellow, a sepia dream - twice, and finally managed it by the third time. He was met with the pale, tense faces of Charles and Thomas, bracketing him on either side, looking down on him like angels. It stunned him into silence for just a moment. "M' awake," he said clumsily. Thomas withdrew.</p><p>  "We have to get you to the Institute," Charles told him, as though it were his idea all along. "You'll have to put pressure on your wound by yourself; we won't be able to move you otherwise."</p><p>  Alastair managed assent, or at the very least, a hum of acknowledgement. He watched hazily as Charles replaced his hands with Alastair's own and <em> pressed,</em> to prompt him into initiating pressure on his own.</p><p>  He tried to keep it up, but he was very tired. His chest burned where the Morax had gouged him.</p><p>  "Don't go to sleep," Thomas said urgently. He slid an arm beneath Alastair's back and another under the crook of his knees, lifting him to cradle against the front of his chest. Alastair's eyes flicked open at the motion. He hadn't realized they'd slid shut again.</p><p>  "You can carry me," he noted. A shadow of a memory drew to the forefront of his mind: falling asleep in front of the fire, very young, hearing his mother's murmured amusement, being carried up to bed in his father's strong arms. It was the only instance he could remember where Elias carried him instead of the other way around, and he could barely remember it at that.</p><p>  "I can carry Matthew," Thomas said. There was something in his voice, some constrained vein of emotion. "I can carry you."</p><p>  His fingers still felt vaguely numb, but he was not quite so cold tucked under Thomas's chin, against his broad, warm chest. Thomas was moving fast - not a jog, but he was taking smooth, long strides.</p><p>  They were drawing close to others now, a smatter of concerned tones. "James went ahead," said Matthew Fairchild. His voice was flat, but it wasn't cold. "The Institute should know we're coming."</p><p>  "Kit, give me a hand -" Thomas said, over Alastair's head, and a second pair of hands helped them awkwardly maneuver into the carriage.</p><p>  Charles sounded incredulous. "Matthew, you cannot be planning to drive. You know you aren't allowed -"</p><p>  "By the Angel, this is hardly the time," Matthew hissed, as Alastair was carefully settled on a carriage bench. He lay still as someone nudged his hands aside and pressed down, harder than he'd been doing. Alastair made an involuntary choked wheeze.</p><p>  "Sorry," Thomas said, a little out of breath. "You've already lost - a great deal of blood."</p><p>  Alastair tried to tell him that it was alright. In fact, it didn't hurt so much anymore. He felt strangely removed from the rest of his body. His head had become its own entity.</p><p>  "Alastair?" Thomas sounded abruptly nervous, frantic. "Look at me. Stay with me."</p><p>  He was falling slowly, crushed between wakefulness and the encroaching dark. He thought he could move a finger, or make a sound, but later, possibly later. The energy was leaching out of his bones. Faintly, he heard Thomas curse and scramble from the carriage.</p><p>  The last thing he heard was Thomas’s voice, unusually sharp: “Both of you, stop it, we need to go <em> now.</em>”</p><p>  But the words that followed him down into the dark, playing over and over again like a skipping record, were <em> Look at me. Stay with me. </em></p><p>  Alastair succumbed.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>tf when your ex boyfriend and your future boyfriend have to save your ass amirite folks</p></blockquote></div></div>
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